Light in the Darkness: Samsara Mix
by inalasahl
Summary: The more things change, the more Inara stays the same. Inara & River


Author's Note: Thanks to skripka and dirty diana for the beta. Thanks also to llaras for offering her thoughts. Remixed from A Light in the Darkness by Amy for Remix Redux IV.

Inara misses the wind, the feel of cool air stroking her face. The air inside Serenity is still and stagnant. It is one more thing she has never become accustomed to here in the black.

Inara mentions the air when Kaylee asks about the training house. Kaylee thinks Inara doesn't understand the mechanics of a ship. She tells her that the atmospheric feed is constantly recycling the air, scrubbing out the carbon dioxide, adding in oxygen. Kaylee explains for a half-hour, mindful to show Inara the mechanics of the ship in ways her dress won't be dirtied.

Inara would not mind a dirty dress. The companion's guild teaches how to react to those who look beneath the clothing, makeup and ritual, and don't like what they see. It does not prepare one for the fear that beneath these things there is not even ugliness, just nothing for anyone to see at all. How else to explain that none of them seem to remember that Inara, too, emerged bloody at the end?

Kaylee worries aloud that Inara doesn't like it here and that she will leave again. Inara knows that if she left again, she'd just find herself back sooner or later. It is not a companion house she misses; it's knowing where she belongs.

They have apples for dessert. "I've missed the old food," River says to Simon, before sinking her teeth into a soft red apple, juicy enough to turn her lips wet.

The food on Serenity is static like the air: always the same, never changing, nothing like a living thing. Every guild house Inara has ever lived in had its own garden. Planting, tilling and harvesting are good tasks for restless souls and minds. "Growing is patience," the house mother used to say. Inara was raised on meals that changed with the seasons, but she does not get the chance to agree with River.

"The apples aren't old, River," Kaylee says quietly. She bites her lip, then affects a cheerful grin. "They're brand new!"

Everyone is looking at River now, as she drums her fingers across the table-top, trying to explain. "No," River replies. "They're old, they're old, like Eve before us. They want us to eat them. They can tell us what they are. The other food can't do that, it just waits passively. The apples are active, and they tell us when they are hungry for us."

Mal's fingers clench at nothing. He has the sense to stop himself before he says anything silly, but Simon's jaw starts working. Inara's tired of them all. At least she can fight back when they are obtuse, misunderstanding what she says. They assume River is crazy, and nothing she says makes sense. River, who dances barefoot to patterns created in her own mind while Inara tries to dance in steps frozen by feet now turned to dust, is nothing like crazy at all.

"River, the food is all the same age." Simon begins a long explanation.

"Simon!" Inara snaps, in harsher tones than anyone save Mal has heard. All Inara cares about is that it gets everyone's attention. They swivel toward her in dismay. Helping, Simon's trying to help, but Inara's tired of waiting for them to figure out that some things cannot be helped, because they simply need to i be. /i "You're -- all of you -- you are treating River as an idiot child. Simon, you have told us all how brilliant River is. Not that your opinion matters -- we have seen it ourselves. Truly, if she was just the Alliance's crazy shell we would not keep her with us." She peeps at River, hoping she's not upset by all of this, but River is smiling at her, dark eyes gleaming. Inara pushes away the low ache that pierces her. "River, did Simon say anything you didn't already know?"

River hesitates, glancing in apology once at her brother before shaking her head "no." River is beautiful.

Inara nods in triumph, nostrils flaring slightly. "Now, if you will all excuse me, I think I shall finish my meal in my shuttle," she says, allowing herself a slight flounce.

"Light," River says behind her. "A hundred thousand pinpricks." The whisper follows her down the corridor.

Inara's ink and wash brushes are a comfort to her even in the old method, finding brightness in five shades of black. A stroke here, a stroke there and the whole resolves into an image truer than any capture could be.

The door slides open. Inara steels herself for Mal's bitter complaint, or Kaylee's halting apology. Both of them formed in earth, thinking that metal flies. But it's her, instead. "River, I didn't expect you. Please, come in."

"Thank you," River says, "For telling everyone that red is red and you can't stop stopping." She stops. "No, that's not right. That what's right is what's right even they think it's wrong."

"Shh, it's okay." River does not need to talk for Inara to hear her. She draws the trembling hands into her own, kissing white knuckles clumped into fists. "Why don't you ever stand up for yourself, sweetie?" Inara keeps her eyes open and accepting, as the weapon becomes again a woman.

"Did you learn that in Companion training?"

"Learn what?"

"How to make everything stop spinning so fast." She did, she thinks. Still enough that she might yet turn to stone. Inara envies River's spinning.

River shakes her head, picking Inara's thoughts from her mind. "It's too fast," she says. "It's like a drug, but it's bad. It won't help you. It just hurts you until your brain is scrambled eggs and you're four years old again."

The grass is always greener, she supposes. "You know a lot more than you've been letting on, don't you?" asks Inara, smiling slightly.

"I let it on." River rolls her eyes. Lord, what fools these mortals be. "It's just that no one understands it." Inara's soft smile widens as she takes in River's large grin.

"Why don't you ever relax?" Inara asks. "I think this is the first time I've ever seen you smile."

"When I relax, I have time to realize that my brain isn't going to come back."

"It can't come back, if it isn't lost." Inara, also, was once stripped down to her component parts and remade in someone else's image of a better thing. Dark rings rim River's eyes, which have seen too much in short years. "Lie down, River?"

On the bed, Inara's lap becomes a pillow. She trails one hand through wild hair. "You're beautiful," Inara whispers, stroking River's back carefully, feeling fear, worry and care slip away. "I can't believe they did this to you. You could have been anything. You could have been a doctor like your brother. You could have found universal peace. You could have been a companion."

River rolls onto her back suddenly enough that Inara worries, afraid that she has been looking into River's eyes and seeing her own reflection. They are not the same, really. Inara was once a girl made too soon a woman, but River is a woman kept too long a girl.

"I'm not angry," River reassures her. Desire flickers in those eyes, hot enough to make Inara's breath catch.

When River arches up to kiss her, Inara isn't callous enough to ask if she's sure. She kisses back, instead. "Tell me if this is going too fast, okay?" This is how Inara learned to love, with a gentle kiss on the mouth. Her hands press flat against the bed, giving River every chance to move away. "Relax."

"I am," River whispers. She keeps on talking: about how Inara shines and about new beginnings.

Inara knows about beginnings, how each new life is a chance at rebirth into some finer knowledge. Nothing is permanent, not even a soul, Inara was once taught. She remembers a guiding hand to steady her as she lit one candle with another. As one flame is lit from the other, yet is separate and new, so are we reborn.

The End


End file.
